1. Field
The field of the invention relates to auto-detection of reliability indicators of devices in the field according to reliability statistics of data automatically gather and analyze by a machine.
2. Background
Gathering and analyzing data on the reliability of electronic devices and components in the field is typically a computer-assisted manual process. The person analyzing the data uses domain expertise to select, sort, and/or review data gathered about a product or components within that domain. Often, the reliability data to be analyzed is gathered in a similar manner, such as by a person requesting or obtaining data based on domain expertise.
As the number of devices in the field and the number of components per device increase, the job of gathering and analyzing the reliability data can become overwhelming. For example, performing reliability analysis for 10,000 devices in the field, each including approximately 100 components, where each component has four potential reliability indicators, can include gathering and analyzing up to 4 million pieces of data each time an analysis or review is desired. It can be appreciated that such gathering and analysis may become prohibitively time consuming, with respect to manpower, and expensive with respect to cost.
For example, manually gathering and analyzing reliability data for data storage devices in the field, such as network servers, file servers, or Internet servers having numerous mass storage devices (e.g., optical and/or magnetic disk drives), components, and software will become more difficult as the number of data storage devices and mass storage devices increases over time.